Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Sight & Sound Challenge: Stalker (1979)

Film: Stalker (183/250)

First Time/Rewatch: First Time

This is a rare gem of a film. It's mesmerizing, haunting, thought-provoking, and yet I have a hard time explaining what makes it so compelling, or what it's even really about. A man, known as the "Stalker" guides two other men (the Writer and the Professor) into a land known as "The Zone." Supposedly there is an area within that will grant your deepest desires, but the land is dangerous and forbidden, with unseen and unknown obstacles. It seems like something is watching you. It reminded me a bit of Picnic at Hanging Rock in that sense...a simple landscape turned ominous and alive. Littered with debris of the past, this place seems like a time capsule of human pain and destruction. So many unanswered questions. Watching this film left me feeling like the men on their expedition...curious yet satisfied having been given just a taste of this surreal world, my mind opened just a little more. I don't know what else to say, but watch it.